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Francis Asbury volunteered to go to America

On this date, August 7, 1771, Francis Asbury volunteered to go to America for the purpose of expanding the Methodist Church.

One of Asbury’s greatest strengths was organization. He created districts of “churches” that would be visited by circuit riders. It is reported that he himself preached about over 16,000 sermons, or at least one a day, and traveled about 270,000 miles, or 6,000 a year and ordained4,000 preachers. According to Methodist statistics, when he arrived in American, the Methodists had 10 preachers and 600 members. As he died, almost 45 years later, they had 695 preachers and 214,235 members.